NOTE: Since our main goal was to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom, our itinerary focused on a lot of parks and areas that maybe people would not normally go to if not in this season, like Chidorigafushi and Yoyogi Park, Meguro River, Kawazu Zakura Park, Keage Incline and Yoshino Mountain.
**Biggest Tips:**
Depachikas – Department store basement food halls. This is our best tip, and we wish someone had told us about. This is a foodie dream. For us specifically, we loved Takashimaya, it’s where we found the best food of our entire trip. It’s filled with little food stalls with ready to eat food and beautiful bento boxes. Heading for a shinkansen? Go to a depachika to get your fresh bento box. We found the best daifukus here as well. It seemed every Takashimaya had food stalls from local companies around Japan, and all of them were all different. The quality was amazing – forget the popular street markets full of tourists, go here instead.
Hotel with washing facilities in your room – Our hotel in Kyoto was a god send. We ended up washing up all our clothes for free in our room, and we dried them overnight. Perfect for such a long trip.
Onsen at the end, not the beginning – When we booked our ryokan in Hakone and the private onsen Yuryo, we didn’t need to relax. It was nice to do it, but in retrospective we should have booked it at the end of the trip. We were so tired we would have appreciated it 100x more.
Be flexible with Mt.Fuji – We heard a lot of stories of people booking hotels around Mt. Fuji and the weather being so awful they didn’t see a thing. Have flexible hotels, keep checking the weather (cloud coverage, cloud ceiling and overall weather) and when the good weather opportunity strikes, take it. Even if it’s a day trip from Tokyo. Just do it when you’re sure you’ll see Fuji.
Mt.Fuji from the Shinkansen – If you’re using the shinkansen and you know the weather is going to be good to take a glimpse of Mt.Fuji from it, book the side with 2 seats (not 3 seats). Either way, it’s always the side with 2 seats, because the seats rotate 180 degrees in the final destination. Careful, they sell out. You can always stand up and go to the windows between carriages to take a look, but it will get crowded.
Yamato luggage forwarding system – We used it 3x, and it worked perfectly. It makes such a difference to go on transportation only with 1 cabin bag and a backpack.
Money wallet – An absolute must, you’ll handle money a lot. Best place to get cash from – 7 eleven ATM’s.
Ryokan + Shukubo – Basically stay in a traditional Japanese style room and sleep in yukatas. You won’t regret it (next time, we want to try a machiya).
Night tour of Okunoin Cemetery – One of the best experiences in Koyasan as we learned so much about Shingon Buddhism. Guided by an English-speaking monk. You need to book and pay for it online beforehand. https://www.night.koyasan-okunoin.com/
**Biggest let downs:**
TeamLab Planets – How’s this so popular? It was a mystery to us. We did everything in 40min, the whole thing looked tired, old, and the fact we had to do everything barefoot? It actually smelled like feet in the halls, quite disgusting. It was also extremely crowded.
Tokyo Localized Tour – We honestly wanted to give up almost immediately. Even though our guide tour was very sweet, we couldn’t understand her at all. Even if English is not our first language, we both work in English speaking environments. I think everyone in the tour was pretty much lost. We didn’t learn a thing. Maybe we were just unlucky.
Yoshino Mountain – We didn’t realize after getting the cable car it was still 1h uphill by foot. Too much effort for so and so views.
Akihabara – We’re not the biggest fans of manga and anime, so we felt lost and out of place in the very crowded shops.
Restaurants – We didn’t realize it would be so difficult to eat in nice restaurants. A choice needs to be made, you either spend a lot of time waiting for a table (1.30h/2h) or go find food elsewhere. So, lots of place we thought we’d go, we ended up changing our minds just looking at/thinking about the queue. It helps if you go for a late lunch or early dinner, but during the high season it doesn’t make that much of a difference.
Sakura street in Tokyo & Arashiyama Bamboo Grove in Kyoto – Both very small and busy areas. They look lovely in pictures, but this is exactly what they are – Instagram spots with nothing else to offer.
**Hotels:**
Tokyo – SUI Kanda and APA Hotel Higashi Shinjunku. Can’t recommend any. The first one was claustrophobic and the staff’s level of English was awful. It was also quite far away from the places we wanted to go in Tokyo. The second one is located in a not so nice area of Shinjunku, it doesn’t have good connections to the airport, the metro station that interested us was 20min away, and the staff was not flexible with a terrible level of English (we tried to ask our concierge if taxis to the airport had a flat rate, and even with google translator he was completely lost).
Hakone – Yoshiike Ryokan. The gardens and the rooms were beautiful. When we booked it we didn’t realize we wouldn’t eat the kaiseki meal in our rooms though, which would have been nice. But overall, we’d recommend it. The staff spoke to us through a translator device, but tried to help the most they could and were very sweet.
Kyoto – Hotel GOCO Stay. This was our favourite. It’s an apartment style hotel, we had a kitchenette and a washing machine in our room (free detergent). The clothes dryer was a function in the bathroom, so we ended up washing and drying all of our clothes hassle free. Our bags sent with Yamato were waiting in our rooms, and the staff’s level of English was amazing. They also helped us confirm our reservation at Koyasan. It’s also family business.
Koyasan – Shojoshin-in Temple. Quite old and historic, no private bathroom. We enjoyed the experience, and the location was great right next to the main attraction for us – Okunoin Cemetery. But when we went to Eko-in Temple to meet our guide for the night tour, we thought it looked much better than ours, and the monks spoke English. So maybe I’d take a look into that one instead.
Kawaguchiko – HAOSTAY. Free breakfast, western or Japanese style. We went for the western and it was actually pretty good. The top level has a nice view of Mt.Fuji. The location wasn’t great though, which was our main interest, a bit far away from Kawaguchi Station, and the roads aren’t really cabin bag friendly.
Osaka – Agora Place Osaka Namba. Nothing wow, but it served its purpose.
**Day by Day report:**
Day 1 (24th) TOKYO – Arrived 10am from a night flight. On arrival we bought 10gb of data from Ubigi (an eSim) and we both shared it throughout the trip (we had to buy more data towards the end of the trip). We immediately bought 2 Suica cards at the airport and they worked in every destination we travelled to (Suica can only be charged with money btw). We checked in at our hotel in Kanda and took a nap. We then walked through Ginza and went for an omakase (“Kyubey”) which we had previously booked (it was actually pretty good).
Day 2 (25th) TOKYO – Unfortunately it rained the whole day. We woke up early to go to Chidorigafushi Park to see the Sakura trees. We then went to Meiji shrine, and Yoyogi Park for more hanami. Walked through Harajuku, ate some pancakes at “A Happy Pancake” and then went to “Ichiran” for a late lunch (at this point the queue took only 15min). We then went to Shibuya crossing, watched the scramble from the top floor of Mag’s Park (we had to pay by buying 1 drink each). Hatchiko memorial (super busy and had to wait to take a photo). For yozakura (cherry blossom viewing at night) we went to Sakura Street. We tried to go to Meguro River, but realized at the station the lanterns had turned off at 8pm.
Day 3 (26th) TOKYO – Still raining. Went to Asakusa, Nakanise-dori and free walking tour from Tokyo Localized in the morning. Lunch at “Nionbashi Tendon” for tempura (waited 1.30h to be seated, worth it though). Meguro river for yozakura and fruit sandos for dinner at “Daiwa Nakameguro”. We tried to go to Starbucks Roastery but apparently, we needed tickets and they were sold out.
Day 4 (27th) TOKYO/HAKONE – Went to Asakusa in the morning to enjoy the market with no rain. Ate at “Kibidango Azuma”, “Naruto Taiyaki” (for sweet potato taiyaki) and “Ginkado” (for daifuku – but we don’t recommend it, we found much better ones at Takashimaya). Then the top floor of Asakusa Culture Tourist Center for a free view of the Tokyo Skytree, which was nice and quite empty. Off to Kawazu Zakura Park for more cherry blossoms, but there wasn’t much to be seen. Ueno Park to watch Japanese people having picnics under the cherry blossoms, and ate some street food. Checked out of our hotel, sent our bags to Kyoto through Yamato and hopped on the Romance Car train to Hakone from Shinjunku, to check in at our Ryokan called Yoshiike. Strolled through its famous gardens and waited for our kaiseki meal. We loved the experience, but even though we’re not picky eaters, it was a challenge to each such different flavors. We also booked a private onsen for 1h during check in.
Day 5 (28th) HAKONE/KYOTO – In the morning we had our breakfast at the ryokan, checked out and walked 15 min to Onsen Yuryo. You can only make reservations though the phone, so we asked our concierge back in Tokyo to book us a specific room at a specific hour. He said he did, but they had no reservation in our name… and at that time they only had 1 type of room available. It was still worth it (we recommend booking it, because at around 10.30h there was a massive queue and we’re sure some people got turned down). We then took the free shuttle bus to the station and travelled to Odawara, where we boarded our shinkansen to Kyoto (booked the tickets through SmartEX). We picked up some fresh bento boxes on the ground floor of Takashimaya (more on this on ‘tips’). We checked in at our Kyoto hotel and walked through Hanamikoji street at dusk, and we actually spotted a geisha (apparently this is the best time to see one)! Pontocho alley, Gion Tsatsumi Bridge and Shirakawa for a night stroll back to the hotel.
Day 6 (29th) KYOTO – Woke up very early (5am) to go to Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. We decided to walk from there to Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple, and the half an hour walk was just peaceful and lovely. We were at the temple before it even opened, spent some time there and then took the bus (just outside the temple’s main entrance) to central Arashiyama (where the Togetsu-kyo Bridge is located) to go to the Arashiyama Monkey Park. It’s a quite a steep climb, but worth it. Some of the monkeys were sleeping on the branches of Sakura trees. We then went on public transport (2 buses) to go to Kinkaku-ji Temple (Golden Pavillion). If we had arrived first thing in the morning, maybe it would have been nice and peaceful, but for us the amount of people and noise at around 12pm took the beauty of the place away. We’re glad we checked it out though. From Kinkaku-ji Temple we hopped on another bus to central Kyoto, had some quick lunch at Nishiki Market and walked to Nagomi Tea Ceremony (which was previously booked). We enjoyed the experience; the ladies spoke good English and we learned a lot. You get to ask a lot of questions as well. Then we wondered through the area at sunset (Nineizaka, Sannenzaka – basically the Higashiyama district) and discovered a lovely souvenir shop with handmade pottery called Jizo. Walked back to the hotel and picked up some sushi bento boxes in Takashimaya for dinner.
Day 7 (30th) KYOTO – We unfortunately underestimated how tired we’d be from the previous day. We woke up early again (5am) to go to Keage Incline. We were wrong thinking it would be empty at that time of the morning, it was already super busy with professional photographers, brides having photo sessions and tons of tripods. It was still worth going at that time though, as the trees were in full bloom, and just imagine how busy it would be later in the day. We then decided to go to Inari Shrine. We arrived at 7.30am, and it was already super busy. We also didn’t realize it was going to be 2h walking through it, and the shrine was busy throughout the whole path – forget those photos and videos walking by yourself. The more you walked, the less people you’d find, but it was still pretty much busy. We recommend going for sunrise or maybe sunset as well. After this we had to take a nap, since the tiredness had accumulated. Udon noodles for late lunch at “Fumiya Nishiki” (nothing wow) and in the afternoon we went for matcha tea and latte in Koyamaen Tea Room (our tea ceremony hosts recommendation). We loved it, bought some souvenirs (matcha latte and sencha tea) and actually saw Matt Bomer buying matcha there (we actually spoke and he’s very nice). Koyamaen recommended ALBA for handmade pottery (quite expensive), and that was our next stop. We then retired for the day.
Day 8 (31st) KYOTO/KOYASAN – Another early wake up to go to the famous Kyoto streets during sunrise (Nineizaka and Sannenzaka specifically). Although it was lovely to walk around the beautiful and quiet streets of Kyoto, the famous spots were already crowded at this time. We actually got yelled at by an American tourist with a tripod to get out of the way. The professional photographers + instagrammers + tripod people were all protecting each other, to try to get ‘the’ shot. So forget having a nice photo in this famous spot, or even sitting down and enjoying the view. We soon gave up and headed to Kiyomizu Temple. It was quite empty and therefore peaceful, and we got to drink from the Otowa Waterfall. Since we were in the area, we decided to go to the famous tatami-floored Starbucks. We arrived just before it opened and, once it did, we were able to get a nice table. As soon as they open the doors the crowd rushes to get to the nice Japanese-style rooms, so beware. It was still 8.30am so we decided to stroll around Shirakawa and Tatsumi Bridge, and we were able to get some nice pictures. Back to the hotel for check out, and to take care of sending our bags to Osaka (trough Yamato), since we were spending the night in the mountains of Koyasan. After Takashimaya opened, we picked up some food and started our journey to Koyasan. We went to Osaka by train, then metro to Namba station and we bought our Koyasan World Heritage ticket in the information center (be careful and buy the one with express trains, much quicker, direct and more comfortable). We checked in at our shukubo (a temple lodging) called Shojoshin-in. We had our very interesting shojin ryori style dinner (buddhist vegetarian cooking) in a private room, and went for a night tour of Okunoin Cemetery with a Buddhist monk who spoke really good English (we had to previously book it and pay for it online). It was eerie but very interesting. We learned a lot about the beliefs of this sector of Buddhism – Shingon Buddhism.
Day 9 (1st) KOYASAN/OSAKA – Woke up early to attend the Buddhist morning prayer at our temple, and then ate breakfast (the same shojin ryori style) again in a private room. Checked out and went to the cemetery again to see the monks delivering lunch to Kobo Daishi (the father of Shingon Budhism in Japan) at 10.30am, as they believe he’s in eternal meditation deep in the cemetery. We decided we had had enough of Buddhism at this point, and went back to Osaka to enjoy the city. Had a rest, and strolled around Dotonbori and ate some takoyaki at “Takoyaki Wanaka Dotonbori”.
Day 10 (2nd) OSAKA – We decided to go to Yoshino Mountain. We booked our tickets the previous night at the kinketsu website, a direct train from Osaka-Abenobashi. Once we got there we had different options to go up the mountain, either by foot, by cable car or by bus. We decided to take the cable car, but in retrospective the bus would have been more practical, since it would have left us closer to the Hanayagura Observatory, our main goal. We didn’t realize that once we got to the top it would still be around 1h going uphill by foot, so beware and bring the right clothes and shoes. We only saw a couple of other tourists roaming around, the majority were Japanese people with bento boxes enjoying the views of the Sakura trees, but we still thought the whole experience was a bit underwhelming. It was quite an effort to get to the observatory, and the views were spoiled with houses and utility poles. There was no ‘clean’ view, so manage your expectations. When we got back to Osaka we decided to go for a late lunch to “Sushiro”, so we could have a sushi belt experience, and we really enjoyed it. Late night stroll through Dotonbori again, ate the famous 10yen coin pancake (not really worth it) and then hoped on the metro to go to the Shinsenkai area. It ended up being a let-down, because the Tsutenkaku tower wasn’t lit up for some reason, and the area was quite empty.
Day 11 (3rd) OSAKA/KAWAGUCHIKO – The previous night, we checked the weather predictions for around Fuji. We checked cloud coverage, cloud ceiling and the overall weather at Kawaguchiko. The predictions were perfect, so we decided to change our plans. Instead of heading back to Tokyo we cancelled that night in the hotel, and booked a random hotel around the lake Kawaguchi, so we could see the sunset and the sunrise around Mt.Fuji. We used the shinkansen from Osaka to Shinagawa, Shinagawa to Shinjunku by metro, and Shinjunku to Kawaguchiko by bus (we used highwaybus.com to get our tickets – they sell out at busy times, but don’t be afraid to book it in advance because you can always cancel for a small fee). Picked up some food at the Takashimaya in Shinjunku before hoping on the bus. Checked-in at our hotel and hopped on the local bus (Kawaguchiko Sightseeing Bus) to Oishi Park. From Oishi Park we walked back to the hotel during sunset (around 50min) and took a billion pictures.
Day 12 (4th) KAWAGUCHIKO/TOKYO – Woke up at 4.15am to catch the first train from Kawaguchiko station to Shimoyoshida station, and walked around 20min to get to Chureito Pagoda. Again, don’t think you’ll be the first one there, it was already pretty busy. A bit of a reality check though: the famous picture you see with the pagoda and Mt.Fuji is taken from a ramp in which you can only stand for 5 minutes, till one of the people in charge sends you away. If you want more time? Join the queue to get another 5 minutes there, and so on. It was all still worth it tough; the views were breath-taking. We then walked to the famous street Fujiyoshida and took some pictures. Train to our hotel, nap, check out and bus back to Shinjuku. Picked up some food at Takashimaya and checked in at our hotel in Shinjuku. We decided to go to Yebisu Garden Place Tower for a free view of Tokyo Tower in the evening, and had a night stroll through Roppongi Hills.
Day 13 (5th) TOKYO – Breakfast around Ginza at “Centre the Bakery” for some shokupan toast, and we discovered Marunouchi Shopping, with lots of boutique shops perfect for souvenirs. We then went to Imadeya to buy some sake to take home. Caught the bus to teamLab Planets, and then spent the rest of the day in Akihabara, where we ate wagyu in “Mansei”.
Day 14 (6th) – Flew back to London at 9am.
4 comments
If hotel location is important to you, probably should check that before you book them?
I may be in the minority here but I personally feel somewhat embarrassed not speaking the language of the country I am in so hotel staff not speaking English is not something I would complain about.
Glad you enjoyed department store basements. They are indeed fantastic as well as dangerous.
How’d you book the fast train from Tokyo to Fuji? We need kawaguchiko.
Thank you for sharing your post trip!
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i am going for 2 weeks and only have Tokyo plans. I know i’ll book another trip somewhere and am thinking of Okinawa for 3 days. Do you think its worth going around or settling in one or 2 places? I’m going to re-read this a few more times and take notes
Great post, sounds like an awesome trip, thanks for sharing!
Interesting (but I guess not surprising) about Kyoto still being busy at 5 in the morning! Also, the area of Shinjuku you stayed in that was unpleasant, is that close to the station? I’m thinking having that as our base and thought it was a fairly built up modern district?